Vector Art

Vector art is drawn in software like Adobe Illustrator or Affinity Designer as points, curves, and fills defined by math rather than a grid of colored pixels, which means the same file prints crisp at a 2-inch left-chest logo or a 20-inch full-back design with zero loss of edge quality. Because each color in a vector file is a distinct, closed shape, a print shop's separator can pull one color per layer directly into film positives for burning a screen, without redrawing a single line.

For the buyer this is the difference between a $0 art fee and a $35-75 redraw charge: send us a flattened JPEG or a phone photo of a logo, and someone on our art team has to manually trace it back into separated shapes before it can go on a screen. We get files that were "converted" to vector by someone tracing a blurry PNG in five minutes, and the jagged edges show up the moment we blow the design up to full-back size.

Illustrator .ai and .eps files, along with properly saved PDFs and SVGs, are the formats print shops actually want; a Word document with a logo pasted in or a screenshot off a website is not vector art no matter what file extension gets slapped on it. Ask whoever designed the logo for the "original vector file" or "source file," not just "the logo."

The mistake buyers make constantly is assuming a high-resolution photo or a large PNG counts as vector art because it looks sharp on a screen — resolution and vector are different things entirely, and a 300-dpi raster file still pixelates and needs redrawing the moment it's scaled past its native size or separated into spot colors.